Konvolution Kashew.
A chat with Don Kashew.
Photo by Stefan Tschumi.
Between the Zuri brannt riots and the Needle Park catastrophe, two events that occurred in the eighties in Zurich and that have been underlined in the previous two Dee Dee’s Picks releases, have unfortunately backlashed in today’s world yet have also been sublimated by others in various cultural endeavours.
On a different note: “The edible seed of the cashew fruit is native to tropical climates that is rich in tryptophan, a neurochemical that our bodies turn into serotonin.”
These two subject matters, seemingly unrelated, have been channelled into one person — coinciding to make room for relief from a transformed dystopian-like era that has not without effort risen from its depth. Found from this dark period is a modern-day character that brings to the surface these once very present issues. The music and topical form that occur simultaneously within this release have been created by Don Kashew, a self-described troubadour who acts a natural supplier of your favourite natural antidepressant as well as an eternal fanboy to music from the past, present and future.
An enthusiastic participant to the Swiss underground scene, Don Kashew can be found either helping the Zurcher community or playing obscure and classic records at a regular pace in Der Kern bar as part of the Zurich nightlife. The added anecdotal form that this release takes shape is the fact that Don is a city council whose department is to aid in the organisation of the clean up from the consequences of the aforementioned sociological issues. Don Kashew refutes these questions with sounds that evoke feelings of longing for another world, warm and moist, of another place, captured in a modern time. By commenting on the track titles as presented within this edition, Don Kashew’s music also refers to the irony of capitalistic studies and of the monotonous dullness that life presents. With these two aspects, merged together in a swirl, the music within this release is at the time whimsical and ironic, mature yet underlined with childlike humour. This compilation of past and contemporary works is a reflection of Don’s sound development, affected through time and change, environment and empathy, diligence and insouciance, carefully packaged and influenced by his creative procedure.
Don Kashew delivers a dark dystopian journey that begins with the search for his sound from 2017 to 2021. Reflective and danceable, dark and united with melancholy underlined with with and humour, this edition serves as a natural follow up from his previous release on Subject To Restrictions Discs. In the chat I had with Don titled “Kashew Konvolution”, we talk about who he is, his upbringing and creative process.
So Don, tell me about how you came upon your first release?
Well actually my first ever release was a little bit more than a year ago under the label Subject to Restrictions Discs, run by Dominik André. How this occurred was actually kind of funny. Quite some time ago, I bought this ethno-ambient record from a guy called Silvano on Discogs. Turns out that he was into similar music as I was, which is why we kept meeting from time to time. One day he asked me if I would like to DJ with him at a party of his students since he was (and still is) a teacher. Turns out the party was organised by Dominik, who would later become the founder of Subject To Restrictions Discs. After that, we started seeing each other occasionally through mutual friends or common events.
Two years ago I was sitting on a handful of tracks that I wanted to release. At first I wanted to do a simple digital release to see what attention it would get. At the same time, I was familiar with Dominik’s work for his label STRD, so I thought I'd shoot in the dark as I felt that my music could match his label’s sound. After listening to it, he got very interested and wanted to do a release, which was exciting for me since like I said, it was my first release. That, and to have it on vinyl for his white label series was something special for me.
Most of my musical influences come from the skateboard scene. I watched a lot of skateboard videos that contained music, so I was resourced through that. I come from a small suburb in Aargau where my first musical endeavours consisted of playing in various bands in basements. Most of the time me and my friends were just jamming around and having a good time, more oriented towards the style of punk. As I grew older, the main electronic music that was surrounding me in these suburbs was Goa Trance or Minimal Techno. Around that time I got nerdy about acts like Aphex Twin or Autechre and started making music soon after building a modest but functional studio with cheap gear. It took quite a long time for me before I could finish tracks because before, the music that I was making consisted of sketches and watching gear videos on YouTube. When I first started completing tracks, it was more Chicago/House beats. But then I remembered my musical roots and so wanted to do something more minimal, more raw.
Myself, I also come from a punk background. I shifted to making electronic music because I wanted more independence and autonomy in my musical endeavours. Therefore transitioning to electronic music made sense. You basically only need a computer that is running Ableton live, so it captured well the initial ethos of DIY from punk. I understand there is a difference in genre, yet the lines are blurred when it comes to attitude and energy, especially when referring to techno music.
Exactly. For a long time I wanted to achieve the perfect track. I started out using only hardware, because it seemed more natural when creating, especially since I come from a background of playing instruments. Eventually my studio grew, synths came and left, where it made me realise that trying all this gear was great and helped me finding a direction of music style I wanted to produce, but I still was not really making music in the end. Back then also, I was making music with the intent of “making it big”. But because of this mentality, I had a massive creative block and couldn't produce anything. It is only when I really let go and made music with what I had, not with what I needed, that tracks started to get finished. I took a step back and applied that punk mentality in the sense that I stopped thinking so much and liberated myself more from my original way of thinking. Making music without necessarily the intent of releasing it. By just ‘doing’ it, at a faster pace, really helped me to produce higher quality stuff. For example, for a while I had the workflow of making one track a day, even if the tracks were not good, it did not matter, as I always learned something through the process. Even so, the first tracks that I sent you are some of the very first tracks I produced under this mindset. ‘Chique’ for instance, only took me a day, whereas ‘Lew’ only took me half a day. Especially as you get older, you might have new responsibilities that come in your life, so it is important to maintain a sort of discipline in your practice, otherwise you never really get anything done and it’s always two steps back to get your head back from where you left off.
Photo by Stefan Tschumi.
Some of the artists I work with were a bit reluctant when I wanted to reissue stuff from their past works, partly because they wanted to focus on what's happening now and what they're doing currently. What do you think about releasing only new stuff as opposed to some back catalogue when releasing music?
I’m not sure I have an opinion on this. I mean, what I sent you at first were clearly in their draft stages, not even demos. It was nice for me to have the opportunity to revisit them, adjust and tailor them to give them a new life. It's maybe comparable to a DJ set or making a mixtape. With my record collection, every year I discover new stuff by combining them together in a new manner. I think this is also something valuable in this creative practice, to reinterpret works again and to be able to reuse them in the future in various possible ways.
If it's timeless, why not? I think interesting enough with the compilation that you sent me that the music within responds well to each other, although they are written at different periods of times. So my follow up question is this: do you compose with a theme in mind?
There’s perhaps a starting point, not necessarily a theme, in the manner that I compose tracks. Mostly I have liked this idea to try to do a specific thing for example with composition or use a specific sound. Then I start to compose around that. ‘Chique’ for instance, started out with rhythmic vocals that I wanted to try out, whereas the result that you hear, I started sketching around it and built it into a more completed work. Otherwise it can also come with opportunity. In the instance of ‘Zeit AG’, I borrowed a Korg Poly 800 from a friend to mess around with which eventually birthed the track. In the past, I was a bit of a gear nerd so was regularly looking at new stuff, without actually producing music. Now I’m quite comfortable with my setup and very rarely have the urge to buy new gear. I’d rather see my record collection grow.
Speaking of that, what is your studio set up like?
For a long time a MPC 1000 was the brain of my studio. All equipment is controlled by it and songs were arranged via midi. The result was then recorded onto a Zoom recorder as a mixed stereo file. That led to some interesting results because you had to plan things ahead what would consist of your song structure. Otherwise I have a handful of synths, both digital and analogue, poly and mono, all going through various effect units routed in a small budget mixer. For the future, I’m planning to work more with Ableton because of its limitless features.
Referring to you having your music coming from a dark dystopia, I feel that this is a common description when referring to the Swiss German music scene. What’s this reoccurring theme of dark dystopia I keep coming across when talking about Zurich or people who come there?
I don’t really see myself as core part of the “scene” in Zurich and therefore not really qualified to say something about that. But as you said, at least for the last few years there is quite a dark vibe going on. But this definitely wasn’t always like that. I remember times when all this Wave, EBM, Techno trend wasn’t a thing yet and those parties weren’t really well visited. So I think also a little bit that it is not only exclusive to Swiss Germany, but also as a global trend which finds its form in a unique way in Zurich. In the future, the mood may change to happier music, but then too it will find its unique forms in local scenes in general. At least I think.
Based on that answer, what do you think about your own music and the reasoning behind the choice of titles? Especially when I noticed there were foreign (by European standards) words/instruments used?
But actually, it's funny because recently, when talking about my music, somebody asked me how are you always in such a good mood and making such dark music? I think of my music not so dark, rather uplifting. I think that it comes from my Cosmic rock upbringing. I like the concept of foreignity, especially in a creative exploration mindset. I enjoy the somewhat contrasting things. ‘Oasis’ for example is about wandering in the desert and has a desolate, lost, abandoned vibe to it. Yet like my personality shows, I like to underline things with elements of humour. So in this song, I play around with the meaning of desert and dessert, as a sort of comical relief. The track titles are also based on feeling. Like ‘Spinett' uses spinet-like sounds which is actually from a wavetable synth I used. I have a lowkey fascination for traditional sounds, similarly to the DJ mixes I make that have a big variety of sounds and styles. Especially organic sounds is something that I wish to incorporate more in my own music in the future.
That said, the ‘Zeit AG’ title was lingering out for a while. It comes from my work place where we had this clock in/out software that we’d have to use to register our hours. I wanted to use the name for a long time and with that track I seized the opportunity.
What about the artwork? How did that happen in relation to the tracks?
The guy who did the artwork, Fabi (who DJs under the name Max Bunt), is actually a really established crate digger in Zurich and a great friend. So much so that when it comes to really obscure Swiss music, he is my go-to guy. Anyways, he’s a graphic designer by day but really I would describe him as a collector. To elaborate, he has a lot of stuff, whether books or records, that he gets from local flea markets. When I was telling him about this release, we agreed that he would do the artwork. He showed me different variations of “forgotten images” from books he found from flea markets. After the sketches I sent you, I am glad we settled on the maze, since it makes so much sense. It is relevant in the sense that this is how my mindset is when making music and how I was feeling at the time of producing these tracks . Back then, I had just finished my studies and felt a bit helpless because it felt like I was doing internships in and out without any career prospects in sight.
A maze where you continuously experiment and search until before you know it, you reach its epilogue, so to speak. But I think the idea of a maze is applicable to everything in life really. It can be easy and straightforward at times until you find complications, helplessness, and then a glimpse of hope to turmoil. You want to give up, all in hopes of this sentiment of relief that you wish to seek at its end.
Artwork by Fabian Stacoff.
Is it difficult for you to finish songs? For instance, when do you know when they are complete?
I work a lot based on deadlines. I don't like it when things drag on because then I lose interest in them. So it’s important for me to finish things as quickly as possible in order to not stagnate. It also relates to limited studio time due to other obligations, such as work. Back then however, I had another reason on top of this. Since I worked only with hardware and couldn't really save presets on most of the synths let alone mixer settings, I had to finish a track before I can start a new one, so it was in my interest to finish tracks as soon as possible. It’s not like Ableton, where you can easily create a new project, without losing all the settings.
In one of my older releases, I asked Mario Scherrer why he decided to sing in English as opposed to his native Swiss German tongue. What’s your reason to sing in French?
I lived in Paris for a few months where I picked up French to a decent level. Of course, if you don't practise every other day, it disappears quite easily. Anyways, I find that my English is not so good, to the point that I am quite shy about speaking it since a lot of people in Zurich speak it near fluently. With French it is the same but because nobody in my immediate surrounding speaks it, I am more comfortable in applying it for songwriting material because people cannot judge me as much for it I guess. It also relates to the fact that I love cheesy pop songs from the eighties where Swiss German people attempt to sing in a foreign language. You have these little intricacies and errors that make it very charming. I have quite a few very obscure records, private pressings really, that have this kind of endearment.
On a final note, any reason for your reoccurring logo?
Simple. Ying yang cashews.
Stay up to date with Don Kashew’s work through his Instagram.